10 things Generation Y won’t tell you

For the babies of the baby boomers, it’s top 1% or bust

By

JenWieczner

1. “Don’t like us? Blame our parents.”

From childhood through today, the distinct combination of cultural touchstones they’ve experienced has set them apart: They watched the Cosby Show, wore slap bracelets, wondered whether O.J. was guilty, worried about Y2K and waited for their Internet to dial-up so they could instant-message their friends.

Jon Reinfurt

They saw the World Trade Center towers crumble, and they struggled to find or keep a job in a tough economy. All before the age of 30 or so. Generation Y was born in the 1980s and ’90s—roughly those now between the ages of 18 and 34 (though experts disagree on the precise time frame). These so-called millennials are mostly the children of baby boomers, and at more than 82 million strong, they now outnumber the members of the boomer generation, according to the National Conference on Citizenship.

But the millennials have grown into adulthood with some personality problems that the boomers lacked, according to psychologists who measure such things, including high rates of narcissism, materialism, unrealistically inflated expectations and a startling lack of independence. American college students scored 30% higher on the 40-item Narcissistic Personality Index in 2006 than they did in 1979, for instance, according to a study led by psychologist Jean Twenge of San Diego State University.

And many experts lay the blame for some of these problems at the feet of the parents, specifically those who bought into the then-popular “everybody gets a trophy” school of child-raising—showering their kids with positive affirmations and telling them they could be anything they wanted to be, says Twenge, also the author of “Generation Me”.

The consequences of such ego-boosting can be seen in the discrepancy between millennials’ opinions of their abilities and their actual achievements: In 2009, 53% more American college students rated themselves “above average” in writing skills than did so in 1966; and 13% more did so for math, according to an analysis of the University of California Los Angeles’ annual survey. Meanwhile, SAT scores decreased 4% over the same period. Furthermore, some psychologists believe millennials’ overconfidence in their own abilities can translate into unrealistic expectations for their careers and their bank accounts. Another University of California study even found that students with enhanced beliefs about their academic prowess were less likely to graduate college.

Still, some millennial defenders argue that the generation is misunderstood, and that what comes off as aspirational and narcissistic is really just a reflection of millennials’ desire to make a big impact on and improve the world. “There are always going to be some who are lazy and entitled, but they are people who give back to society,” says Dan Schawbel, a millennial who founded a research firm focused on his own generation, and the author of “Promote Yourself: The New Rules for Career Success.”

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